Development of a Specific Impulse Balance for a Pulsed Capillary Discharge (Preprint)

Abstract

A capillary discharge based pulsed plasma thruster is currently under development at the Air Force Research Laboratory. A torsion thrust stand has been developed to simultaneously measure the shot by shot total impulse and propellant mass loss of the thruster, yielding a per shot specific impulse. Competing design considerations affecting the performance of the thrust stand has lead to an optimized diagnostic tool capable of measuring total impulses up to 150 mN s with a resolution of 0.4 mN s and mass losses up to 18g with a resolution of 1 mg.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 13, 2008
Accession Number
ADA484436

Entities

People

  • A. D. Ketsdever
  • A. P. Pancotti
  • J. A. Duncan
  • Matthew A. Young
  • T. C. Lilly

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Sensors
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Astronautics
  • Blood
  • Detectors
  • Materials
  • Measurement
  • Microvessels
  • Military Research
  • Moment Of Inertia
  • Propellants
  • Propulsion Systems
  • Pulsed Plasma Thrusters
  • Specific Impulse
  • Steady State
  • Thrust
  • Thrusters

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerospace Propulsion Engineering.

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Hall-Effect Thruster